


Dustfall

by dorcasdeadowes



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Literal Sleeping Together, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-06-30 03:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19844305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorcasdeadowes/pseuds/dorcasdeadowes
Summary: The reality of sharing a bed with a boy was very different from how Jester had imagined it.





	Dustfall

It had been a close one.

She’d held his weight, one arm draped over her shoulder and the other around Fjord, all the way back to the house. Until finally, they’d gotten him out of his boots and onto the bed.

“Are you okay?” asked Fjord, lingering in the doorway.

Jester nodded because words were beyond her reach.

“We can all sleep in here tonight if you want,” he offered awkwardly.

It was clear he had no idea what the right thing to do was.

Jester didn't know either.

She shook her head and Fjord fumbled helplessly at air before muttering a, “G’night,” and leaving the room altogether.

Caleb had not moved from the spot they’d left him. He was breathing though, she could see that much. Jester climbed into the bed but did not lie down. There would be no resting. His eyes were shut, but sleep hadn’t taken him yet; she knew what he looked like asleep.

She threaded her fingers in his hair and began to give him small plaits, just because it was something to do with her hands.

“You know,” he breathed. His voice was shaky. “There are better times to give me a new hairstyle.”

“Is it keeping you awake?”

“Not at all. It’s very relaxing.”

“Then this is the perfect time.”

“You need to sleep too.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do. I’m annoyed at you.”

“For almost dying?”

“Obviously.”

“It’s a bad habit. Hard to break.”

His eyes fluttered open and the piercing blue stilled her movements. Strands of dirty ginger fell loose as her attention turned fully to those eyes of his.

“I am sorry,” he said.

And she could see how very much he meant it.

Jester blinked rapidly (as though it would stifle the oncoming stream of tears) before letting her head fall to his chest.

“Oh, Jester,” he whispered. “Jester, Jester, Jester.”

Her breathing grew evermore ragged as she was no doubt soaking his shirt through to the skin.

“You know, I must smell very bad right now,” he said with a lilt of humour. “You might want to not breathe in so deeply.”

With a half-choked cacophony of sob and laugh, she let her head fall sideways so she could see his face.

Jester had never been cautious with her heart. She loved as fully and firmly as the world allowed and had no intention of changing. Still she cursed herself for being fool enough to place so much of her heart, so much of her love, in the care of a man so quick to fall down.

She watched as he fought, in vain, to keep his eyes open, thinking all the while how very different the reality of sharing a bed with a boy was from the fantasy of it.

Love wasn’t anything like the stories she’d read. While they had given her glimpses of the heat, the passion, they had failed her to prepare for the pain of it.

The pain was supposed to come from the longing, the touches, the heartache of being apart from your partner. It was not supposed to thrum in your chest once you were together. It was not supposed to be so consistently consuming.

It hurt to look at him sometimes. Even when they were doing nothing but sitting up in bed, side-by-side, lost in their own books.

If the pain of being without him had been lesser than that of being with him, she’d cut all ties and run back home to her mother.

Instead she freed his weak body from her weight and settled into her pillow to better watch the rise and fall of his chest.

No, she thought, sharing a bed with a boy was very different from anything her mind had weaved from imagination and fairy tales.

Yes, there were times when all she wanted was to kiss his face, every single inch, until she had settled her anxious mind with the proof of his warm, living body. But there were times when he wouldn’t meet her eye, when guilt and disgust and all else in his mind that was vicious and cruel to the man she loved, was stronger than her persistence. And while there were times when there was no conceivable power in all of Exandria to unclasp their hands, there were also the times when they did not touch, but instead spoke truths into the darkness that were never acknowledged in sunlight.

One night when they lay, not touching, staring up at a ceiling not even Jester could really see.

“Caleb?” she’d asked.

“Yeah?”

“You still want to change the past?”

There was a beat in which she heard a long sigh.

Then, finally, he said, “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she replied as brightly as she could.

In the dark, he found her hand. It settled her heart a little.

It did not matter what circumstances surrounded them, there was never a night where anything greater than inches spanned the distance between them. Jester had known for a long time that she never wanted a night to pass without him.

And as Caleb slept off his near-death, Jester was determined to stay there until he woke, just to be sure he would be there for countless nights to come. She watched him well into the morning, fully prepared to watch throughout any number of sunrises and sunsets.

But he slept for so long that Jester had no choice but to pry herself from his side to find something to eat.

Reality, once again, destroyed the fairy tale of romance.

* * *

What had been intended as a quick trip to the kitchen turned into something a little more substantial when she found Nott perched on the counter, shoveling crackers into her mouth without any trace of decorum.

At the sight of Jester, Nott started and leapt to the floor, crackers forgotten.

“How is he?” she asked.

“He’s okay. Still sleeping.”

“That’s good. He needs it.”

“Yeah.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine! I was barely hurt at all,” said Jester nonchalantly, walking over to the pantry.

It was out of a survival instinct that she looked rather than out of a desire to eat. Her empty stomach was too twisted to be hungry, but if there had been something around full of sugar and cinnamon, it might have brought her some happiness. Unfortunately, the shelves were stacked only with Caduceus’ extensive fruit and vegetable collection. With a sigh, Jester plucked an apple and sunk her teeth, half-hearted, into its skin.

When the pantry door swung shut to reveal Nott, Jester realised the other woman had been staring at her the whole while.

“Last night…” Nott began before trailing off.

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“I’ve never seen you so worried before.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever _been_ so worried before.”

Too fast to swallow, tears came streaming from Jester’s eyes.

“It was so close, Nott,” she choked. “And I mean, it’s been close before but he just wouldn’t heal. He wouldn’t stop dying no matter what I did.”

“I know, I know, I know,” said Nott, moving closer and wrapping her arms around Jester’s waist.

“I know you know," said Jester. "I know how much you love him.”

Jester thought for a moment she heard a sniffle down at her side, but Nott was a master at repression and her face stayed dry.

“He got better though,” said Nott sweetly.

“Yeah. Yeah, and he’s getting even better now.”

Nott released Jester from her embrace and it was only at that loss of physical support that Jester realised just how exhausted she truly was. Without thinking, she let the apple roll free into some unknown corner as she sank down.

Nott said nothing. She just joined Jester on the floor, backs against the cupboards.

The silence was deafening, though, and Jester could not stand it.

“How did you know you were ready to marry Yeza?” she asked suddenly.

Nott took a moment to adjust to the swift change in topic, furrowed her brow, and said slowly, “We were young. I don’t think either of us knew what we were doing. It could have ended terribly. If we were different people.”

“But you weren’t. You’re you and he’s him. And you were always meant to be together.”

“I don’t know that I believe in all of that. You know, that any person is meant for any other person,” she said, before adding delicately, “Is that something you believe in?”

“I don’t know. I think I used to. Then I stopped believing. And now I don’t know.”

Wary and wild-eyed, Nott said, “Are you having second thoughts about Caleb?”

“What? No!” she cried. “No. That’s not what I mean. I just mean… after all we’ve seen, it’s hard to believe people are destined for anything. When people who try really hard and do really good things can still be so hurt, you know?”

“I get that. Terrible, awful things do happen. But, I don’t know, maybe I could buy that our destinies are what we were meant to fight for. If I didn’t have my family then I don’t know that I’d ever have had a reason to do anything good," said Nott. "But, some people are good even when they don’t have anything to fight for. They fight just out of sheer determination to fight – like Beau. She’s a good egg from a rotten… chicken?”

“Yeah, that’s where eggs come from,” said Jester. 

Both women smiled widely.

“So… you want to marry Caleb, eh?”

“Nott!”

“You do!”

Then, with a sigh, Jester said, “He’ll never ask me.”

“He’s just a little shy. He needs a nudge. I can drop some hints for you?”

“Well… I mean… you could? I suppose.”

“I definitely could.”

“But I don’t want him to ask me because he thinks he has to. I want him to want to marry me. Maybe I should just ask him.”

“No. The man should ask the woman – that’s how it works.”

Jester fixed her focus onto Nott for a moment.

“Nott… if Caleb did ask me (or if I asked him) would you approve of it? Me marrying your son?”

“What are you talking about? That’s literally my dream come true. I’ve been planning your wedding for like two years now.”

Jester laughed and pulled Nott in for a hug.

Nott raised her head just a little and said, “Just to be clear – we are talking about Caleb.”

“Yes.”

“Because, I love you Jess, but you’re way too old for Luc.”

Jester laughed harder and held Nott tighter.

“And you know,” said Nott, a little choked from the embrace, “If anyone else tries to marry him-”

“You’ll scare them off?”

“I’ll kill them.”

“Oh, wow, yeah that’ll work too.”

* * *

Caleb and Jester had not so much as breached the topic of what might happen once the dust had settled, let alone the topic of marriage and happily ever after.

How they had gone so long without smacking dead that particular, constant spider in their peripheral, she did not know. But it was beginning to crawl beneath her skin until there was no room left within her to hold in her desperate curiosity.

A few days later, catching him alone in the process of undressing at the very end of the bed, she took a seat beside him.

“Caleb,” she said softly, as though he would guess what was coming next otherwise, as though it would startle him before she even said it.

“Jester,” he replied with equal measures of sweetness and concern.

She was a good liar, but that had never meant much under Caleb’s burning scrutiny.

“Once, a long time ago, you said that you’d like to come to Nicodranas. To stay, I mean.”

“I did, ja.”

“Things are very different now.”

“They are.”

“Now you have even more reason to come to Nicodranas. With me.”

“That is true,” he said.

But he said it thick and heavy, like it didn’t sit right in his mouth.

Her breath hitched and all she could do was watch as he picked up one of her hands, turned it in his own, and pressed a long kiss to her knuckles.

“But,” he continued, keeping her hand in a gentle grasp. “But, I also have more reason to avoid the place.”

“Why?” 

“When everything is done between us and the Empire, and the Dynasty, and the old Gods, and the new Gods. When all of that is done… I will still be myself. And you will still be yourself. And those two truths cannot be reconciled.”

He let her hand fall free and, in a sudden burst of anger, Jester cried, “What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I am talking about."

They held each other's gaze in a twisted game of chicken before Jester broke.

“That’s so stupid, Caleb. Since when were you this stupid?”

“I have always been a little bit stupid.”

“Well, stop it. Use your big, stupid, smart brain for five seconds, okay?”

He stared at her, disarmed in the blaze of her fury.

“Okay,” he breathed, so softly that it barely stirred the air between them. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Ja, okay.”

“Good.”

He continued to stare in wait while all she could do was stare back. Frustration billowed fog across her mind and mouth.

The seconds passed. Five of them, then five more, and five more.

Jester remembered her own hand then, forgotten and limply clawing at Caleb’s thigh of its own accord. She squeezed (not hard enough to hurt) and there was a tremor in her bottom lip that was beyond control.

“Caleb,” she said.

Hot and angry and sad somehow all together.

“Are you telling me that after all of this, you’ll leave me?”

She hated her voice in that moment, how it was all sadness when he deserved the heat, deserved the anger, just as much.

“No,” he said, quickly, almost confused. "No!"

“Then what-”

“Jester, I am not a good person.”

“Yes you are! Shut up.”

“You have too much faith in me, Jester.”

“Well, I have to make up for how much you don’t like yourself.”

He laughed without humour and Jester squeezed his thigh again.

“Caleb, I know who you are. And I also know who I am. You don’t have to tell me, okay? I can figure stuff out myself.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Two blue hands flew to Caleb’s jaw, stopping his gaze from slipping down, his face from falling.

He said, so quietly that even if they hadn’t been completely alone, only Jester would have heard it, “I don’t want to be without you.”

“Then don’t.”

“That simple, ja?”

“That simple.”

They shared a small smile and let their foreheads press together.

The fire in her heart begged for something more certain, but that could wait. There was no rush to bind him by her side when she had no intention of ever letting him go.

“And you know,” she said with a wicked grin, “Both of us might die before this is over.”

“Oh, do not say that,” he said, pulling her even closer and burying his face into her shoulder. Then, muffled, he repeated, “Do not say that.”

With a soft giggle, she used her weight to tip them both sideways, locked together on their bed.

**Author's Note:**

> listen I don't know what this is either but it's what my heart wanted
> 
> thank you for reading please comment if you enjoyed <3


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